


forgot to mention one little thing

by onakissgodknows



Category: Baseball RPF
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Established Relationship, Gift Giving, M/M, Self-Indulgent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 08:48:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13050585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onakissgodknows/pseuds/onakissgodknows
Summary: Set Christmas 2016, almost two months after the Cubs won the World Series. What do you get the MVP who has everything?





	forgot to mention one little thing

**Author's Note:**

> I'm breaking down writer's block by writing Christmas fic and by FINALLY writing Bryzzo. This is basically unbeta'd/unedited. I'm just here for a laff with this one.

“Hey, Kris, wake up!”

Kris cracks one eye open enough to see that Anthony is in the doorway, kind of bouncing on the balls of his feet. It’s Christmas morning, and Anthony has been talking about it for weeks, naturally, but a glance at the clock tells Kris that it’s too early to be awake. “No,” he groans, rolling over and burrowing into the blankets. “Come back to bed.”

Anthony runs into the room, launches himself into the air, and lands on the mattress so heavily Kris actually feels himself go airborne for a second. “Stop!” he whines, and hits him with a pillow. It would be cute if Anthony was a five-year-old, but Anthony is twenty-seven and six-foot-three, and Kris is trying to sleep.

Anthony whacks him over the head with the same pillow and Kris opens his eyes to glare at him. Anthony’s grinning ear-to-ear and wearing the ugliest Christmas sweater Kris has ever seen, red and green and yellow and white, adorned with candles and poinsettias and Christmas trees.

Okay. He’s still kind of cute.

“You look stupid,” Kris says.

Anthony laughs and runs a hand through his hair, brown curls he’s let grow out since the season ended. “You like it,” he says.

“I don’t,” Kris insists, even though he does, and grabs Anthony’s hand in spite of himself, twining their fingers together. He doesn’t want to get up yet. It’s cold outside and Anthony is warm. Why should Christmas morning be for anything but this?

Anthony leans down and presses his forehead against Kris’s. “Merry Christmas,” he says, and drops a kiss on Kris’s temple. “Now get up.”

Kris looks regretfully at the clock. It’s just after eight – not that early, but Kris has been sleeping a lot so far this winter, catching up after the long grind of the season.

Not that this season left him anything to complain about.

Anthony is off the bed and heading for the door. “I’ll make breakfast. You want pancakes?” Neither of them are very good cooks, but Anthony can usually make pancakes without burning them. Kris grunts in assent and lays in bed a few minutes longer before dragging himself to his feet.

Naturally, it’s cold in Chicago, and the cool weather seems to seep through the walls of the apartment, even though the heat is on. Kris considers for a few minutes before he puts on his own Christmas sweater – it isn’t as heinous as Anthony’s, but it’s big and warm, and it will make Anthony laugh.

Kris ambles into the kitchen to find Anthony whistling something that sounds like a horrible mutated combination of “Santa Baby” and “Go Cubs Go.” He laughs out loud when he sees Kris. “And you think _I_ look stupid?” He flips the last of the pancakes he’s cooking onto a teetering pile, and places the stack in the center of the table.

Kris sits down at the table, tugging the long sleeves down over his hands. “Figured I wouldn’t let you be the only one.”

Anthony beams. “So this is all for me? Kris, I’m touched.”

“Shut up, don’t let it go to your head.” Kris ducks away from meeting Anthony’s eyes, feeling his cheeks redden. He grabs a plate and starts stacking pancakes on it. Anthony’s still hovering in the kitchen, looking worked up about something. Kris finally looks at him again. “What’s your deal?”

“I know you said no Christmas presents – “

“Oh, c’mon, Rizz, you didn’t.”  

“I sort of – “

“ _Anthony_.”

“ _Kris_.”

Kris blinks up at Anthony, who has this shit-eating grin all over his face. Kris wrinkles his nose at him, plucking at the loose threads on his sleeves. “You’re gonna make me feel bad ‘cause I didn’t get you anything.”

“No, no, no, don’t feel bad!” Anthony says quickly, going to him and putting his hands on his face. “Will it – well – I don’t wanna give it away, but I don’t think you’ll be mad at me after you open it.”

Kris’s heart skips a beat because, let’s face it, even though he didn’t ask for anything and didn’t _want_ anything, he’s kind of excited now. “Okay, what the hell did you do?” He can’t keep the smile off his face. It turns out that Anthony Rizzo will always be Anthony Rizzo, going the extra mile even when he doesn’t have to.

Anthony puts a box in front of him. It’s not that big, maybe the size of Kris’s fist, wrapped in red paper in a sloppy kind of way that indicates Anthony wrapped it himself. There’s too much tape and the paper doesn’t fit perfectly around the box like it always seemed to when Kris opened presents from his parents as a kid, but it’s so unmistakably _Anthony_ that Kris loves it anyway.

(This has to be what real love feels like, when you love somebody so much you love their terrible wrapping of a gift you never even asked for.)

Anthony sits down next to Kris, anticipation on his face. “Open it,” he says, gnawing on his thumbnail.

“What, you nervous?” Kris says, starting to unstick the tape from one side of the package.

“No. Just rip it, dude, I know it looks like shit.”

Kris tears into the paper and tosses it aside. He carefully lifts the lid off the box and inside is – “A baseball? Hey, Anthony, appreciate the thought, but I’ve got a whole bunch of ‘em.”

“ _Look at it_ ,” Anthony says insistently. He looks like he’s about to burst, like if Kris doesn’t figure out what this is fast enough he’s just going to explode.

Kris takes the ball out of the box. It’s been used – there are grass stains on one side of it, and emblazoned in gold lettering – _Official Ball, 2016 World Series_. He practically drops it. “Holy shit, Rizzo, is this – “

Anthony nods his head so hard he looks like a bobblehead. “The final out.”

Kris gives Anthony an incredulous look. “You gave this to Mr. Ricketts!”

Anthony shrugs. “Well, I gave him _a_ ball. I didn’t give him _the_ ball. What he doesn’t know…”

Kris starts laughing. “So after the parade you stood there in front of like millions of people and _lied_?”

“I’m sorry!” Anthony blurts out. “Does that make me a bad person? He deserved a World Series ball, it just didn’t feel right for him to have, you know, this one.”

There are so many people who deserve to have this ball. Why not Montgomery, who threw the pitch that resulted in the slow grounder towards third? Why not Zobrist, their World Series MVP who deserved that title every step of the way? Why should Rizzo not just keep the ball himself, since he’s the one who caught it?

Kris looks at the ball in his hand, trying to comprehend the fact that the last time he held it had been the most important play of his life. It was lucky he’d been playing in, or the batter might have beat the throw to first. The wet grass had nearly stopped his heart when his foot slipped, but he barely even noticed that his throw had sailed just high – but not high enough for Anthony Rizzo to miss it.

He’s been asked about it a million times since then, and all he ever says is thankfully he was able to make the throw and thankfully Rizzo was able to make the catch.

“Why didn’t you just keep it yourself?” Kris asks.

Anthony shrugs. “Didn’t take me that long to figure out what I wanted to do with it. You should have it. We never would have got there without you. You made the play. All I did was catch it. Besides, if you have it, I can still come visit it.” He takes the ball from Kris’s hand, kisses it, and gives it back with a grin. “The only hard part was waiting until Christmas to give it to you.”

There is something about the fact that only the two of them know where the final out ball really is that feels sneaky and illicit and intimate. Like they’re doing something a little bit wrong, but it _is_ a little bit wrong. A little bit wrong like skipping study hall, or running a red light, or shoplifting a pack of gum. “I feel like you’re just introducing me to your dark side.”

Anthony winks. “I won’t tell if you won’t tell.”

Kris grins at him. “I’m not gonna tell.”

“Still hate me for getting you something when you said not to?”

Kris laughs. “Kind of, but I’ll get over it.” He turns the ball over in his hands, still trying to come to terms with the enormity of what they accomplished this year. “This is – thanks, Anthony. I love it.”

Anthony beams. “I’m glad!”

“I don’t know how I’m going to follow this up next Christmas, though.”

Anthony lifts his hand and waggles his fingers. “How about another World Series ring? That’s what I want.”

Kris laughs again. “Yeah, sure, let’s shoot for that. No promises, though.”

Anthony waves his hand. “Do your best. I’ll love you no matter what, anyway.”

Kris feels his face redden again and he ducks his head, grinning. “Love you too.”

“What?” Anthony says, pretending he didn’t hear.

“I said I love you,” Kris says, louder.

“That’s what I thought.” Anthony gets up and leans down to kiss him. “Eat your pancakes. They’re getting cold.”

**Author's Note:**

> I never was thrilled by the fact that Rizzo gave the ball to Tom Ricketts, so I fixed it. Also, I totally know it would probably be really hard for Rizzo to actually pull off a switcheroo like he does here, but I never claimed my fics made logical sense.
> 
> Title is from Santa Baby, if you didn't catch that.
> 
> Happy holidays, baseball fans. How much longer until spring training? Reminder you can follow my writing tumblr [here](https://on-a-kiss-god-knows.tumblr.com/).


End file.
